THE appearance on the internet of photographs of a naked Prince Harry is one of the reasons why The Sun, and its Scottish edition, decided to print the pictures in today’s edition of the paper.

Says The Scottish Sun: “The images were first published on the web three days ago. But the Palace’s lawyers, via the Press Complaints Commission, warned the UK’s newspapers against printing them, claiming they would breach Harry’s privacy and the PCC Code.

“Since then the entire UK media — print, online and TV — has reported on them and told readers and viewers how to find them on TMZ.com, the website that first published them, and on countless other sites that followed suit.

“That coverage put those pictures a mouse-click away from anyone in the 77 per cent of British households with internet access.”

Yesterday, the publisher of The Drum media and marketing magazine was explaining his reasoning for publishing the pictures online, updating his editorial in the late evening. Earlier, Gordon Young had appeared on BBC Radio 5 live.

The Scots managing editor of The Sun, David Dinsmore, was explaining the decision on the same station this morning. He has explained his reasoning – freedom of the Press and the internet – on video, here.

Last year, the Sunday Herald identified – in its print edition available in Scotland only – footballer, Ryan Giggs, suspected of being behind a super injunction, on the same grounds of it commonly being known on the internet.